Jesus stood right in front of me, and I put my hand into his hand; and then he led me to different places.

I saw blurred trees and pine trees and dark green grass and a garden with greens and colors as he led me and I followed; and then he led me to a cliff that was triangular and that had rocks on it that I stood on as we stopped, and I stood on the edge of the cliff and looked out.

And what I looked out to was a sea and grass moving together. A sea that was grey but with a little bit of blue in it and the grass a soft, dark green grass that moved as one; and I stood on top of rocks as I stood on the cliff with the rocks surrounding me as the wind blew while the sea and grass moved.

The skies in the distance dark grey and light grey, yet here was light around me. Around us.

And as soon as I was led there and I stood there, he started talking to me.

“What is life, my little one? Life is me. I am Life.

With the suffering but victory. With the sadness but joy. With the seeming chaos but clarity. With the weariness but rest. With the weakness but strength.

I am Life, my little one. I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

I am your life.”

And he showed me another vision that I had had the other day as he talked to me and gave me the answer that I needed, reminding me of that other vision.

The vision was me being led by a hooded person to a dim room with little light; and the room had a chair in the middle of the room.

I was being given a test, and I knew that I was as I sat on the chair; and when I sat on the chair, the person who was hooded gave me a knife and said, “You know what you have to do with the knife.”

And the person left, and I was alone; and as I was alone I thought to myself, “I can kill myself. I have a choice now. I’m free to kill myself now. There’s no one here to stop me.”

Yet as I said that to myself, something wasn’t right. Deep down inside me, I knew that something wasn’t right. There was something wrong; and though I had the urge to kill myself since I could in that vision, I didn’t.

I asked God as I was in pain, “What is life, God? Tell me what is life, please; because I don’t know what life is, and I’m stuck. I want life, but I don’t know what life is. Tell me what life is, please.”

And then I was back, still on the cliff; and I knew what Jesus said to me was true. That He is Life. That He is my Life.

I opened my arms as the wind blew towards me, blowing on my face as I closed my eyes and as Jesus was there with me; everywhere with me.

Just there with me, and that was what I needed: for him to be there with me.

I opened my arms, and he hugged me. Jesus hugged me and told me what I needed to hear that day on Wednesday evening.

“No more fantasies about death. No more dreams about death.”

And he kept on hugging me as we both stood on the edge of the cliff.

And ever since that evening that I had that beautiful, beautiful adventure with him, my Jesus – I have not had a fantasy or dream about death because I can’t.

I can’t because he said no more fantasies and no more dreams about death.

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever.

It’s hard to know how to take of yourself, when one hardly sees anyone or one, truly taking of themselves.

It’s one thing to say that you’ll take care of yourself, but another to do so. It’s easier to say that you’ll take care of yourself than to actually, truly taking care of yourself.

That I can connect to.

More than once, I promised other people that I would take of myself, but then I would do the opposite: hate myself, push myself more than needed, be hard on myself, not take care of myself physically like I was suppose to.

All that and more.

“You cannot possibly imagine exactly how much I hate myself.”

When I found this on the Website, I could connect to this a lot.

I hated myself so much back then because I thought everything was my fault and I made so many mistakes; and I didn’t like that I made mistakes. I though I was a burden, a problem.

A monster. A puzzle. A question. A mistake, and so many more lies.

I hated myself. I didn’t like myself, let alone love myself.

How could I love or like the girl I was, when I was a monster? When I was a depressed, teen-aged girl who had problems and baggage?

A problem, a puzzle, a question, a mistake, a burden?

How could I love myself and forgive myself?

I thought I would never be able to love myself and forgive myself. I thought it was not possible, and that it would never happen and that it could never happen.

But then something changed. Something started changing, and has always been changing ever since I said yes to God.

I started asking myself, “How could I keep on loving God and hate myself?” Or God started asking me this question: “How can you love Me and hate yourself?”

To love God and hate yourself isn’t possible; it’s not because He’s Love.

Somewhere along the way, I changed and yet at the same time did not change.

I changed to myself, changed to who I was always meant to be. I changed into becoming myself, all because of God.

And because of God, I started loving myself for His sake; because He considered and considers my heart a treasure of the Kingdom, I do too. I start to consider my heart as a treasure of His Kingdom because He does.

I start loving myself because He loves me. I start taking care of myself because I know He deeply loves me.

I saw my mother; I saw the one I love; I saw my cousin; I saw the moments, the memories I held to; I saw my brother; I saw my birth-mother; I saw peace; I saw joy; I saw patience; I saw love; I saw everything that was beautiful; I saw Him.

And He is beautiful. So, so beautiful.

I looked into His eyes, His Lion’s eyes – and His eyes were blue/green with grey in them.

Aurora lights were all around Him, light and a little shade darker pinks and purples with other different colors floated around Him; and it seemed like they were worshiping Him, adoring Him.

Worshiping Him like He was Everything, and when I looked into His eyes – I started to know more deeply how He is Everything.

Haha. He is Everything. Haha. He is.

Jesus is.

God is.

The Holy Spirit is.

HE is.

When I looked into His eyes, I started to know more deeply how He is Everything, and I’m still on that process. I’m still knowing more deeply how He is Everything.

I remember His face. His Lion’s face, His mane shaved, but that did not matter to Him – He looked at me, He stared into my eyes, seeing me as I saw Him.

As I saw Him, He saw me.

I saw Him.

He saw me.

He always does.

. . .

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!

During my vacation, I found two shark teeth; and because it was rare to find shark teeth, I put them inside my Bible inside my Bible case.

But as soon as I found them, I took them out of my Bible, so I could read my Bible and put them on top of a book. I moved the book that I had put the two shark teeth on, making them fall onto the ground. I found one but I couldn’t find the other, so I went on my knees, looking for the other shark tooth; but as soon as I started doing that, I felt someone talking to me that felt like a thought.

I felt God telling me, “You may lose the shark tooth, but you will never lose Me.”

And that hit home, and I thought about what He told me and I talked about it with Him; and it’s true. Haha. So, so true.

I may lose a shark tooth, but I’ll never lose Him.

And the next day after that or so, I lost my other shark tooth while I was reading my Bible. I didn’t take it out of my Bible again, but instead left in there – losing it between the cracks of the small bridge I was sitting on, as I flipped the page the shark tooth was in as I was reading my Bible.

But as soon as I lost it, I found something that struck home again: a verse in the Bible.

“My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak , but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.” Psalms 73:26 (NLT)

He is mine forever, just as I am His forever.

I may lose shark teeth, I may lose things and people, but I will never lose Him because He is mine forever.

I will never lose Him.

God is simply amazing and wonderful, and His humor is absolutely, funny. Just funny, haha.

I remembered I wrote one or two character sketches, though I couldn’t remember when I wrote it. I found them today in my old bag, and I saw that I had written two character sketches about a real person and conflict. I was inspired to write a character sketch or sketches about a real person and conflict when I read one of Cynthia Voigt’s books, ‘Dicey’s Song.’

I read them today, and I smiled. I almost always smile when I read something that I wrote a while back. And I decided to combine two of the character sketches that I wrote, together and add onto it a little bit, and share with it y’all.

I hope y’all enjoy it, and I hope and pray that you all have a wonderful day today. (:

~ ~ ~

{There’s This Girl I Know} Written on May 21, 2014 and March 10, 2015.

There’s this girl I know. She and I are starting to be best friends now. Her last name is Parrilla. Her parents are divorced. Her father left, or that was what it seemed like to her. She told me, she didn’t know. She was just a little girl back then, but that’s what it seemed like to her: that her father left her and her family.

She told me she didn’t know why her father left. All she knew was that he was gone. That he had walked out of her life and her family’s lives, disappearing. That he did not stop to tell them goodbye, only to just wave and walk away to who knows where.

She told me when she was young, she thought something, perhaps a monster had stolen her father. She really did not know, she told me again, pain and confusion on her face. “Either I really don’t know, or I just can’t remember,” was her words to me.

Mind you, it took a long time for my friend, the girl I know, to trust me enough to tell me because she was ascared. I don’t know when this happened, but one day when we were together, she told me something that she used to do almost every night when she was a little girl.

She was afraid whatever had stolen her father would happen to her mother too, and she didn’t want the same thing to happen to her mother.

Almost every night at midnight or after midnight, she would get up and check to see if her mother there. To see if her mother was still alive She would panic if she couldn’t hear her mother breathing. She would get as close as she could to her mother, trying not to wake her up while trying to hear her mother breathe; and when she heard her mother breathe, she would go back to bed a little reassured and a little relieved, but she was still scared and she would still fight sleep just to hear her mother breathing.

She told me of her fears and when she told me of her fears, I saw that she was frightened so much. Very frightened.

She was afraid of her emotions. She didn’t want her emotions and she didn’t want to know her emotions. She panicked when her emotions started rising up . She pushed them down, as far down as she could and she thought that helped if only a little bit. “I was wrong in thinking that pushing down and pushing away my emotions helped,” she said to me with a distant look on her face; telling me her words and thinking about what she said at the same time.

Because when she pushed down or pushed away her emotions, they built up little by little whenever she did that. She tried not to leave evidence or tried to leave very little evidence of what she was keeping inside her. She needed a container for her emotions, but she couldn’t find one. So, she tried to become the container herself, but her emotions would seep out. Trickle out.

She was frightened of so many things, and she was also worried about so many thing then. Fear and worry were one of her constant companions back then. She was worried about money because it sometimes seemed like they didn’t have enough and she worried about food being in their stomachs. She worried about her mother and brother. She worried about their health and her health. It seemed like she was frightened and worried about almost, everything.

She didn’t know to be a child because she had grown up when her father left, but she was still was still a little girl on that day she grew up. She just didn’t how to play, and when her family became broken and her father left that was the final straw. She hid from the world.

Years passed by, and the little grew and grew, but she didn’t outgrow her fears and worries. She was still frightened, she was still worried. She was frightened of death and darkness and sickness for they seemed like the same to her because she was worried that her mother was dying because she was sick so many times. She frightened and worried when ever she became sick because she didn’t want to be sick. All she wanted to do was to look after and care for her family.

She was frightened of love because from what she had seen, love had only just her and her family; and she was frightened when people besides her family loved her because she didn’t know if they were going to leave her or hurt her. She didn’t want to get hurt again. She was also fearful of promises from people she knew or didn’t know and from people she loved and whom loved her because she didn’t know if they were really going to keep their promises that they made. They could be filled with lies and wind, and she didn’t want that.

She didn’t want pain and disappointment, again. Yet she hoped that they would keep their promises, even though she tried not to hope.

“I made myself a prison from fear and worry and pain because I thought I would be safe. How wrong I was. It took a long time to take down the walls of thorns I built, even though they weren’t strong.”

“Besides being afraid of those, I was also afraid of myself. I was afraid of myself because I knew I could hurt someone, and I was also frightened of myself because I once almost killed my brother in an accident. I was afraid of what I could do. I was scared of the power I had, and I didn’t want to use it.”

“Yet,” she said. Yet she sometimes used what she knew she had even if she was frightened of it, she revealed to me.

But my friends, my friend is starting to come out of hiding. She’s showing herself to the world without her mask on her face. She’s starting to heal and become whole. She’s starting to get back her voice that she tried to silence and lose. The spark, the flame that she tried to douse is starting to light up.

She finally gave her life to someone she knew she could give it too.

“I gave my life to Jesus, and even though I gave my life to him in anger and pain and sadness and confusion, he turned my whole life around.”

I knew that giving my life to him is something that I won’t ever take back, even though I knew it was going to be hard. He was there when no-one was there, and He’s still with me.

I found and I find healing in Him, when someone hurts me or disappoints me. I found myself and I find myself in Him and in the Father, I thought I never had.”

The last time I saw her, she was finding pieces of herself, rejoicing. In joy. She also found her smile, her laughter. Her laughter isn’t forced, and her smiles isn’t broken. Behind her smile, there’s a story.

She was shining when I saw her recently. She’s still shining, and she’ll shine now because she knows that everything’s alright. She’s with her Lover, Jesus. She’s with her Teacher, the Holy Spirit. She’s with her Father, Abba.